When writing a novel, that's pretty much entirely what life turns into: 'House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day.' —Neil Gaiman

So I go by Audrey Tassle.

Writing is my game, and the 'love of it' is my strategy.

Most people know me for my poems, which is a shame because novel-writing is and shall always be my first passion...

As far as fictionpress goes, I come and go as I please. To those who've bumped into me (or to those whose stories I've bumped into) thanks for showing the interest. I do the things I do because I love it. I love to critique and I love to read, and you have provided me with a pleasure.

I pick stories randomly— the premise may interest me, or it might not— and I would very well say so. It's not that I wish to be harsh. Far from it. My intention is to represent the "everyday reader" and reveal things as a reader might see it, but still be able to provide the help and understanding that only a writer could.

That being said, if your story was reviewed today, pass on the favor and review someone else's.

That's right.

Go out and read a thing or two.

The wastebasket is a writer's best friend...

Words of wisdom for ya, indeed.

Someone once asked what type of stories I like to write. I honestly don't know. I'm completely incapable of putting labels on my stories, even the word genre makes me uncomfortable. It's hard to describe the things I like, but I find it real easy to describe what I don't like.

I don't like happy endings. I think they're overrated.

I don't like tragic endings, or what I like to call hopeless "for naught" endings. (Actually, I love to read these stories. I hate writing them. Go figure!)

I sort of love to write the in-between, that bittersweet part. Endings that make one sigh, that inspire us. We're sad because it's over. We're happy because when we look back at it, we've gone on a journey and we'll never forget it. We take a part of that story with us now, wherever we go, whatever path of life we take.

These are the types of stories I love to read. These are the types of stories I hope to someday write.

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.~William Wordsworth

An Eye for Poetry...?

Hardly. Far from it. I call it as I see it, and yet I'm no where near where I wish to be in terms of my poetry, but I hope you enjoy my poems all the same :)

Poetry is a lovely medium. It is dynamic and flexible; it's a way to incorporate your emotions with words and pictures; it's the highest form of word-worship, because poets have to take an idea and trim it down to a single word. But that's not all a poem is, we must never forget that behind the words, behind the rhymes, and the pictures, there is still a story to tell. Ultimately, this is what makes a poem amazing, because to every person, the story is different.

Thus, there are two things I cannot stand:1.) when an author explains their poem, &2.) when a poem is so abstract it's difficult to understand...

I like to pride myself for writing poems that are clear and still maintain an ambiguous theme where the reader can make of it what they will. But because I'm a writer, I have this knack of breaking rules and thus breaking my own rules I provide you below: the explanations and intentions of my poems. I do this because even while I read other's poems and I make of the poem what I will, I still love to hear the writer's thoughts behind the poem. Though I warn you, these will only make sense once you read the poems and hereby I shamelessly poke my own works :3

Only Way to Cope To date, it's probably one of my most popular poems done in the typical Audy-style where it is simple to understand, may have multiple meanings, and depicts the darker side of this theme we call love.

The poem itself is made of 2 parts (some people debate that there's 3 parts to it) where I have a prologue, and then the actual poem where the meaning hits home.

My intention was to show both 'sides' of love as though love were a coin that could be flipped. We as human beings are capable of loving for better or for the worse of things. The narrator obviously has obviously experienced some loss, and the entire poem has this dark theme where it paints a pessimistic view of love, and while most of the lines depicted are dark, the rhythm and the lyrical quality of the poem remains light and optimistic—just the same, by the time you get to the end of the poem, there is still hope and you realize why it is that we need love, despite the bad things, despite the good things.

Around the middle of the poem, I give the reader a subtle hint with the stanza "...sometimes all one needs to see is the flipped side of it all says me..." if you look at the poem, that's the way I wrote it. That's how I was inspired to write it. I took a fluffy and beautiful theme—love, and flipped it on it's back.

The next line after: "...to live itself becomes evil..." is a sort of word play. Obviously when you read it, you notice the darkness to that line where it's basically telling you that human beings are despicable and living is evil. But if you were to flip the word "live" backwards it reads "evil" :P So that's a little cleverness for you.

Beyond the Locker Door not as well received as my other poems. I can see why though, because I wrote it in the typical high-school fashion. There's nothing new to this poem but I wanted to establish that sense of nostalgia and I welcome it as part of the collection of "love gone corrupt" in the way that it tells the typical story (getting pregnant while in high school) in what I hope to be, an untypical way.

I wanted the story to be subtle. The rhythm and the voice work together to provide that 'far away from reality' voice. Far away, but still bold, to keep it in the fashion of all my other poems.

I'm not sure exactly what it is my readers perceive when they read this. But my intention was probably too subtle, mainly because of the way I wrote it. I wanted to write of the emotions. I wanted to write of the memories and provide that imagery of highschool love. So while the overall poem deals with the emotions, I let the individual word-choice tell the story. This is the opposite of what poems usually do, where the poem as a whole expresses a story and uses specific words to evoke emotion, I did it the otherway around. Needless to say, it was definitely a challenge.

The locker door... Make with it what you will. When the door opens, it symbolizes the girl falling in love, the accumulation of memories being tacked onto the door.

The particular memory that deals with the story is the 'battlefield of lust and war' line. In other words—sex. Love gone chaotic, unchecked which leads to the break-up.

Finally, the 'locker door' closes. It is the closing of oneself, of love, of those memories. The past is past, but what is left behind—the secret, is forever yours. The poem is flexible, because it could have many meanings.

People are usually shocked when I tell them it's about a girl who gets pregnant. The point is, I wanted to make the part about the conceiving of the child real subtle, as a sort of slap in the face. You never notice it coming, but once you realize it, once you go back to read it again, it's obvious. The clues are all there. That's exactly how it feels like to get pregnant, no?

The word 'begotten' in the dictionary means to father, to procreate offspring. Unless the reader is familiar with the word, they're probably not going to get my intention. Which is why I made the particular word stand out. If you notice, it sounds odd when you read it out loud, because it's supposed to.

The poem isn't abstract. It's obscure. That's the way I intended it to read, because when a highschool teenager gets pregnant, she's not going to go right out and say so. It's a secret you'll have to pry from her. That is my intention anyway.

The Cold Hurts is probably the most abstract of the collection. I love it and I hate it. I hate it because it is somewhat difficult to understand or so I'm told which pains me, because I really believe a poem should be able to stand on its own. This tells me that I have a lot of work to do with this one...

My intentions for this poem was to create a monster out of love (as is the usual theme for all my poems). At first glance, you think a reaper might be coming for you, because in life, isn't that what we all think? When we're young and inexperienced, love is everything for us. It is scary, it is unreal, it's all a dream. And with the structure of the poem, I hoped to create something like a 'descending mist' pattern, where the abstractness of the poem and the images help to contribute that dream-like quality. (It doesn't work out so well in this site because FP doesn't allow us much creative freedom when it comes to structure, but if you'd like to see what it really looks like, you can see on YWS., though the poem is under a different name.)

But as we get more experience, we realize that everyone goes through that first turbulent phase. The poem is written with the narration of the "inexperienced" where everything is an exaggeration. In italics, I have the point of view of the "experienced" watching over the storm and wishing for an end to this pattern of helplessness.

My second intention for this poem was to break the cliche. Why does the aftermath of a relationship always lead to a "broken heart?" That implies that we're forever changed, as though we can never get fixed again. I do not believe our hearts get broken, though it might feel that way at first...

The inspiration for this poem came about whilst I spent a cold winter day in Wisconsin. I saw my friend outside and it looked like she was shivering to death. I offered her a scarf, when I should have offered her a handkerchief. She was actually sobbing. So I thought to myself, perhaps the aftermath of the storm is not broken pieces, but a frozen heart? Stiff with 'cold' and too afraid to love again.

Now the line that is probably the most troublesome for readers: "...unaware of rotten, old flesh trailing like bread crumbs..."What I mean to say is as we go through life and experience break-up after break-up, as we become more 'experienced' and as we become wiser, we also lose a part of ourselves. That child-like innocence that we used to have and the trust that we used to give away so willingly. But we shouldn't despair because I see it as a pile of bread crumbs. We can always follow the trail home.

Audy has submitted a total of 207 signed reviews. As of June 8th 2009.

Here are some other sites that have been invaluable to me:

YWS The Young Writers Society is probably the best site out there for honing your writing skills. I'm Audy on there too, so if anyone joins the site, be sure to friend me.

Fiction Factor They have some great articles, I definitely recommend reading through some.

YW101 The Young Writers group is really good with sending out emails and helping one another out in time of need. Join if you haven't already!

What happened to Star Crossed?

Meh. I deleted it off the site. Why? Because I've spent a year revising, editing, and re-writing so that it might someday be good enough to meet my own standards so that I might have the balls to send it to an agent and get it published.

Until that day comes, may no one besides me ever look at the accursed manuscript ever again...

Still, I must never forget:

Eternal gratitude to Cave Dwellers and Sour Lullaby who were my betas for the original first few chapters. The story might be completely different, but you guys still supported the original, which makes all the difference.

But most important of all, eternal gratitude to the thirty or so of you guys who reviewed and read the story. I'm terribly sorry that I had to delete it off the site, but to anyone who is interested in reading the first few chapters of the new draft, just e-mail me. I'm audypants via hotmail.

Just Read:

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut...

People have been asking me to read Vonnegut for a while now...

I liked where Vonnegut took me. The writing and execution of this was superb, and Jonah's narration was of the type that made me want to read on and on for the sake of the writing and the narrator's insights, and not for the sake of plot: who-the-hell-cares! I really got into the quirky characters and the idea of Bokonism. So by the time I got around to the actual story aspect (page 150 something) I really did care about plot: what-the-hells-going-on?

And then I got to the end...

I had no comment. I just smiled and read the beginning again.

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

People have been asking me to read Picoult's work as well, and I must say, please continue to make recommendations for me! This was indeed another good read.

One could really learn about craft with the execution of this. I definitely adore the changes of point of view and the skill to which Picoult was able to gender-bend. Ah, Campbell. He stole the show for me. I absolutely loved this character. Read this book! The story is weaved together skillfully; the subplots held my interest until the very end, each of the characters were loveable (I actually loved Sara's character. The one I had no sympathy or care for was actually Jesse), and the story was captivating.

I didn't cry with this one, surprisingly. Though I loved the ending. I don't think it could have ended any other way. Definitely read this, it's like going on an emotional roller coaster. Sad, but satisfying nonetheless...

Rosaline thought she knew him and what she knew, she hated. But Javier isn't the kind of guy you get to know easily nor is he the kind of guy who is what he seems. He needs her more than she or even he understands. If only she would realize...

He was the enemy's greatest creation. Their deadliest weapon. Too bad they never expected him to fall into the hands of an unsuspecting teenage girl... who, incidentally, has no idea what to do with him. -SKoW Most Creative Plot Award Nominee!-

“Oh it’s real alright,” muttered Jake bitterly. ”And it’ll get realer. Because this is what happens, Owen. Good things always die. Always. Life snuffs them out so we don’t get too complacent, just so we know who’s in charge.”

Are you unable to translate your ideas on paper? Do you find yourself with the inability to write? Like you just don't feel like sitting down and actually typing? Do you feel as though you have come to a wall? You're not alone. I can help.